MBA880 The Working While Traveling Experiment P1: Preparing for Travel

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Well, I'm setting out to find out with her own Working while traveling experience, Nicole and I run two businesses with a team of 21 and we've traveled many times but not for an extended period of time. I think at most we traveled three weeks at a time. But in this experience we're going all in eight weeks of travel, 15 cities. So why am I doing this experiment and documenting it as I go? Well, many people start a business, especially an online business, to be location independent, to be able to work from anywhere, to be able to travel and see the world while running their business. I want to find out for myself, is this too good to be true? Can this actually be done? Can I actually run and grow a business while traveling? What are the sacrifices you're going to have to make? What are the frustrations? What are the challenges that lifestyle business gurus don't talk about? I'm going to find out for myself and share with you the experience in this eight part series. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. So let's talk about what you're going to learn in this eight part series. The Working While Traveling Experiment now, even if you have no intentions of traveling for eight weeks like we are, even if you travel two weeks, you're going to learn a lot about how to prepare and how to get stressed out during the whole thing. Stress is a killer and you want to minimize the stress as much as possible because you're going to be outside your environment. You're going to be doing a lot of different things that you normally don't do at home because you want to take advantage of traveling, obviously and you want to balance work at the same time. So even if you plan on going away for two weeks, this is going to be a tremendous amount of help. It's also going to shed a little perspective on if this is possible in the future. If you want to travel for long periods of time while maintaining your business. I'm also going to be sharing what I've learned along the way about how to do business in different parts of the world. We live in a global economy. This is something we all have to recognize. Anyone with a smartphone has access to your business. We need to know what works and what doesn't in different countries. So where do we start? Today is part one of this eight part series and I'll be focusing on how to prepare for your trip, how to make sure you have the best chances of succeeding while traveling before you even take off on that plane. The better prepared you are, the more likely your stress levels will be under control. So surprises are just not fun when you're working while traveling. So you want to minimize these surprises. You want to make sure you've done everything you can before you go to minimize any unnecessary stress. So let's jump right into it. Number one, you want to plan ahead with your work. There's something you need to understand 100% you need to just come to terms with. You will not get the same amount of work you normally get done at home, in your office, when you travel, when you travel there's so much time that gets spent just doing things, getting settled in, even just grabbing a meal is a little bit longer. It takes a bit more time for you to just find a place to eat, especially if you're in a foreign country with a different language versus, you know, making your own lunch at home or grabbing lunch at the office. So just come to terms with the fact that when you travel, you're going to have to cut back on the workload. Now, there are things you can do to make sure that your business still runs efficiently. For example, normally when I'm not doing an eight part series on working while traveling, I record podcast episodes in advance. I can record and batch these recordings way in advance to make sure that I don't have to do that on the road. Now I have to record on the road in this trip because that's the whole point of the trip. I also have to be taking notes. I need to be making sure that I'm jotting down everything as I'm going along. But this is the exception to the rule. Next thing you need to consider is you need to make sure you have somebody in place to make small decisions. At least small decisions while you're gone. A manager, a supervisor. If you're all alone and no one's around, then you're going to have to allot time for you to actually make decisions during your travel. Whether it's one hour during breakfast, where you're checking emails, making sure you're responding to them in a timely manner. If you don't have somebody to control that kind of stuff while you're gone, you're going to have to do it yourself. So make sure you know when you're going to do that. Number two, this is something you may not expect me to say, but you want to stay light. I'm talking about packing light. Clutter will create chaos. You want to make sure that you are not chaotic in your trip. You want to make sure that you're light and you're easy and you can move from one place to another easily, whether it's from one city to another or jumping from a plane to a train to a taxi. Nicole and I on this trip are traveling for eight weeks with a large backpack and a small carry on. Now, I'm not talking about a huge backpack where people go, like backpacking across Europe with. If you're wondering, we are using the Manal 2.0. This is a very popular bag amongst digital nomads and it's a great quality bag and you can actually Fit a lot. But you also are asked the question when you're packing. This bag is not so big. Do you really need this? Do you want to stay light as possible? The second carry on bag that we take on a small carry on bag is called the Manal Daily. And it's basically our computer bag where we keep our electronics and a jacket and, you know, our chargers and all that stuff. Talking about computers, when you're traveling, it's always best to have a copy of important documents. Whether it's your passport, whether it's important things for your business in the cloud, make sure that you put them up on Google Drive or Dropbox or whatever it is. You don't want to be clunking around with hard drives. Make sure you get some space on Google Drive. It's only like $5 a month for like a hundred gigs. That $5 is gonna be money well spent. Make sure that any files that are on your desktop at home or, or on your computer elsewhere in your office are all synced to the drive so you have access to them. You don't want to be going away for a long period of time and remembering, oh, I got an important document on my desktop, I can't access it. Let's talk about phones. What about your smartphone? You want to call your telecom company and ask them, hey, what is the deal if I roam, If I go to another country, what am I going to be charged for using my phone as if I'm at home? Some companies are great. For example, Vodafone only charges $5 for, for every day you use your phone. So that's a great deal. But if you're staying for a long period of time for a country. So for example, we're gonna be in Italy for a month, we're gonna grab a SIM card in Italy and use an Internet package there. It's gonna be cheaper that way. Make sure your phone is unlocked, so ask your telecom company if you bought it through, you know, your telecom company. This is particularly important if you have an iPhone. With an unlocked phone, you can put in any SIM card from any country and it should work properly. Let's talk about calendars now. When you're traveling, you might be changing time zones. So make sure when you get to your destination, you change your calendar time zone. Google Calendar is great for this because as soon as you get to a new time zone, it recognizes that via your IP address and asks you, hey, do you want to change your time zone? Say yes. So all your calendar appointments are adjusted to your local Time zone. Now, remember, if you're traveling for long distances, let's say, for example, you're going from the US To Europe or from Australia to the US you're going to be in the air for a long time. You're going to have some travel time. So you want to set up a vacation message or an autoresponder message on your email to let people know, hey, I will not respond in the next 48 hours because I. I'm traveling or I'm not going to be available. And you want to say 48 hours because, hey, jet lag is tough. You want to make sure you're rested. You want to make sure you have time to get a good Internet connection and a good workspace. Let's talk about workspace. Now, if you're traveling and you know where you're going, if you know where you're heading to your accommodations, whether they're airbnbs or hotels, you got to double and triple check that they have a great Internet connection or even just a decent one, so you can be able to work and do basic functions like check your email and coordinate with your team. Now, you're gonna need a better connection if you're gonna be running things like webinars or video conferences. Usually you can check with your hotel or the actual Airbnb host and ask them, how good is the Internet? What's the upload speed? What's the download speed? They're usually pretty responsive, and if they don't know how to do that, just tell them to go to speedtests.net. that's a great website for you to check out. What's the upload and download speed of the local connection? Now, you wanna make sure you have a great connection where you're staying so you can be able to do some work while you're traveling. Now, I don't bother with Internet connection while I'm actually in transit. If I'm in the airport, if I'm on the actual plane, I like to take that time to do other things offline, like read or listen to an audiobook or work on things like writing, journaling, perfecting some of my PowerPoint presentations that I do for webinars. These are things you don't need an Internet connection for. And it allows me, or actually forces me to refocus on those areas. So you're now starting to feel a little bit more prepared. We know we're packing light. We got all our electronics in order. We got our drive in the cloud. We're making sure our Internet Connection is solid. Where we're going now, it's really helpful for you to have an itinerary step by step in a Google Drive, in a spreadsheet. Nicole and I do this, and it's fantastic no matter how long our travel is, because we can know exactly every day where we are, where we're going next, how long we're staying. And we have a little column for notes like, oh, we had a recommendation for a great restaurant in the city. Let me write that down. Oh, we know somebody who lives in that city. For example, we're meeting up with Brian Dean from Backlinko.com, a friend of mine. I love Brian Dean, what he does@backlinko.com he's great, great, great at teaching SEO. I highly recommend him. He lives in Berlin. We're going to be spending some time in Berlin and we're going to have a great meet up with him and have some lunch. So that's something we would put in the notes. So keep that spreadsheet handy. There's a great app on your smartphone called Sheets that's just directly into Sheets inside your Google Drive. And you can find all your sheets with that app. I love that app because I can find any sheet, any spreadsheet in my Google Drive. All right, a couple more things I want you to know so you're well prepared. Before you get started on your trip, you got to take a look at the dates you're going to be traveling and see if there's any important appointments you have or important deadlines. Whether it's a launch deadline, whether it's, you know, paying out your affiliates, whether it's paying your staff. Make sure you're not in the air during those dates. Make sure you have a good connection so you can pay people or make those actual things happen. Whether it's a launch or an email you're sending out to your list or whatever it is. You don't want to be caught where you're like, oh, my God, I have to pay this person. I haven't paid them yet because I lost track of time or I lost track of time zones. It's better for you to even pay early to make sure it's done and it's all sorted. Here's another tip. I would highly recommend you travel during a time that's a little slow in your business. Maybe after a launch, a few weeks after that, where there's a little lull and there's not a lot of pressure for you to perform. You've done a lot of work and you're just coming off that pressure. That's a perfect time where you can go and there's not a lot expected from. You could still stay in touch with your list, you can still stay in touch with your audience. You still can answer questions, answer emails, build new content. But the point is, is that you want to make sure that it's not a busy time so you can enjoy a little bit of the traveling experience of traveling. Wherever you're going, those experiences are waiting for you. Hi, I'm Michael from the War and Treaty. You know the jingle now discover the facts about Ozempic, a GLP1. Only Novo Nordisk makes FDA approved Ozempic. Learn about the real thing. Talk to your healthcare professional today.

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All right, let's talk about what I take with me. My equipment. So obviously I take my laptop. I have a MacBook Pro. It's a 13 inch. It's not so big, but I like it compact so it's easy to carry. I take my charging cable for that and I also take with me a universal converter. This is so no matter where I am in the world, I have a way to plug this into a wall. This is one of the biggest nuisances or the biggest pains in the buts when it comes to traveling abroad is every place has a different, you know, whether it's a voltage or a different actual plug. Europeans have round plugs, you know, the US have flat plugs. The UK has this three prong bulky thing. So this universal converter I got off ebay will allow you to plug in to any wall using any equipment. I love it. I also take with me my microphone, my ATR2100. It's a USB microphone that Plugs in right into my computer. I have a little stand as well, because, hey, I'm recording on the road sometimes, even if I'm not doing a series like this, sometimes I gotta record just little snippets Or I'm doing a screen recording for a tutorial and I want crystal clear audio. And I take my mic with me. It's super light, it's not that bad. I roll it up with my scarf and I put it in the bottom of my carry on bag. I take my iPhone charger, of course. I take two pairs of earphones, one as a backup. I also take with me a webcam, my Logitech webcam. I love it. And I take it with me because, hey, I run a webinar company. I'm running test webinars all the time. I'm running webinars all the time for my audience. And I want the best visual possible. And it's so small, I can pack it into my bag easily. Yes, my MacBook has a webcam, but hey, I'm a stickler when it comes to this. I want full hd, I want a Carl Zeiss lens, you know, call me a prima donna, whatever. That's the way I roll when it comes to webinars. I also take with me a converter for an ethernet cable. This is for my MacBook, so I can be able to plug right into or hardwire right into any Internet connection. Sometimes at hotels or in Airbnbs, I can hardwire in right into the router and have a solid, stable connection, no matter if the wifi conks out or not. This is especially important if I'm running webinars, so I take that with me. I also take with me some small flash drives. And when I say small, they're super small. They're like the size of a thumbnail. Like an actual thumbnail, like the nail on your thumb. The brand of this flash drive is Scandisk, and it has up to 128 gigabytes. It's so small you might even notice it's plugged into your laptop. But it packs a lot of memory, and I love doing that because it allows to free up the memory on my computer and run all my files off these flash drives. And there's two more things I take with me. I take my Kindle with me. I love my Kindle because I get to read books, tons of books. I can put so many books on my Kindle. It's lightweight, it's easy. And I also take with me a paper and pen and A notepad and a pen. I like to brainstorm sometimes just on paper and pen. I like a sketch and it's always good just to have it to take down notes. Quick notes. I already mentioned Google Drive and Sheets. These are my go to apps. I love XC Converter, especially for traveling, so you could see the conversion rates of currency. So you know if you're getting a good rate when you convert your dollars nowadays, it's probably best just to, you know, go to the ATM and let the bank do the conversion. Usually it's the best conversion, but it's good to have just in case. I love WhatsApp. WhatsApp is a great way to communicate with different people around the world, no matter what phone they have. And of course I love my iPhone's wallet feature, which allows me to download, you know, my tickets and my Airbnb reservations right on my phone. So it's handy and it's right there. So I can just have it scanned at the airport and check right in. There's another app that I've used before called tripcase, where it allows you to create the whole itinerary in the app and it'll give you all your dates and everything and organize it for you. I highly recommend you check it out. They have a cool system where you just forward your itinerary or your email. Whether it's like your flight details, the one that you got from the airline, or your hotel reservation, you forward it to them. There's a special email for your account and it just organizes it for you. It's pretty cool. Well guys, that wraps up today's first lesson of this eight part series. You're all prepared, you're all ready now to get going on your trip. So in part two of this eight part series, I'm gonna go deep on something very important. Making time for work and for play. This is the hardest thing you're gonna have to do when you're working while traveling, balancing work while balancing, enjoying the experience and seeing what you traveled for. Nicole and I have experimented with a whole bunch of strategies when it comes to this. We know it works, we know it doesn't. And I'm going to share with you all that we have, all the experience that we've had and give you all our strategies in the next episode. So make sure you subscribe and tune in for that. I'm also sharing with you what I'm doing along the way on the journey. It's going to be a lot of fun and I can't wait for you to be a part of it. Thank you so much for listening to the 100 MBA show. We really appreciate it. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us an iTunes rating and review. By leaving us a review, you let other people know what you think of the show and allows us to to bring in new listeners. Well, before I go, I want to leave you with this. Travel is a whole lot of fun. It broadens your perspective, it broadens your mind, and it makes you a better person and entrepreneur. And I'm going to show you why and how in this series. So get excited. Whether you're planning a trip in a month or in three years, it doesn't matter. This is an opportunity. This is an option for you. You can do this if you'd like. So call along the trip, call on the journey with us and learn if you can work while traveling. Thank you for listening. Take care.

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